From: Andrew Brown (A.Brown@LUBS.LEEDS.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Oct 07 2005 - 05:22:50 EDT
Chris, You seem to be saying that Smith was both materialist and historical but admitted he had the wrong history. Probably requires a bit of elaboration. I'd suggest Smith and classical political economy were certainly materialist (they had classes based on production, they introduce the LTV) but not really historical because capitalist classes are taken as natural and 'history' merely a set of aberrations prior to the natural (capitalist) order. Simon Clarke (Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology) is interesting on this (and on Hegel and on parallels between Hegel and CPE from Marx's perspective) Andy -----Original Message----- From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Christopher Arthur Sent: 06 October 2005 21:41 To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Hegel's and Smith's historical materialism? >Am I off-track here? Did Smith have a historical materialist >perspective? Did Hegel? > >In solidarity, Jerry No. Smith gives a theory of history going from agriculture to the twons to foreign trade and then ruefully admits the real development was exactly the opposite! For a study of Hegel's early work see my chapter on him in my book 'The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital' It is true he gives more importancce to labour in the early work but it is still in the interests of the spirit. Chris 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England
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